Getting honest about gluten by, Cookbook Author Gina Meyers (Gluten-Free Polenta Bread Recipe too!)

Getting Honest About Gluten

By, Gina Meyers

Many people have an issue with  gluten. Gluten is found in grains such as wheat, barley, kamut, spelt, tritrale, and rye. People with a condition known as Celiac disease have a sensitivity to gluten. A gluten-free regime is a lifestyle that excludes the protein gluten. Gluten, in individuals who suffer from Celiac disease, causes an inflammation in the small intestines. It is believed that restricting rye, wheat, and barley from one's diet, reduces symptoms of Celiac disease and helps prevent complications of the disease. 

Luckily, a lot of grocery stores and restaurants are getting on board with Gluten-Free products and Gluten-Free Menu items. These handy tips and Gluten-Free Polenta Bread will help you to organize your Gluten-Free cabinet. Surprisingly, many foods do contain gluten, be on the lookout for: Bouillons, Broths, Licorice Candy, Salad Dressings, Flavored teas, Imitation seafood and Soup and soup mixes.

Good Gluten-Free Foods are: Beans, seeds, nuts in their natural, unprocessed form,Fresh eggs,Fresh meats, fish and poultry (not breaded, batter-coated or marinated),Fruits and vegetables, Most dairy products, Amaranth,Arrowroot, Buckwheat, Corn and cornmeal, Flax, Gluten-free flours (rice, soy, corn, potato, bean),Hominy (corn), Millet, Quinoa, Rice, Sorghum, Soy, and Tapioca.

Gluten Free Polenta Bread

1 cup of rice flour or almond flour, your preference

1 cup of Polenta

3 teaspoons of baking powder

½ teaspoon of salt

½ cup of sugar

1 egg

1 cup of low fat milk

¼ cup of vegetable oil

Directions: Place all of ingredients (except rice flour) in mixing bowl and blend with a wooden spoon. Once mixture has been mixed, add the rice flour and continue stirring. Add a little bit of Extra Virgin Olive Oil or spray with cooking spray an 8 inch pan and pour polenta mixture into rectangular shaped pan.  Bake in a 350 degree oven on the middle rack for 20-25 minutes. May also bake as muffins in muffin tins for 18 minutes or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. 

Cookbook Author Gina Meyers Website

Italian Pignoli (Pine Nut) Cookies, by, Gina Meyers

Italian Pignoli (Pine Nut Cookies)
1 cup pine nuts
1 tube 7 ounces of almond paste *cut into small pieces
2/3 cup of sugar
2 eggs (whites only)
1 teaspoon of lemon juice

Directions: Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Mix paste, sugar, egg whites and lemon juice in a mixer. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil on a cookie sheet and form Pignoli Cookie Dough with a spoon. Drop about a teaspoonful of dough on the greased cookie sheet. Gently press additional pine nuts onto the top of the cookie. Bake for twenty minutes.

Bewitched, Bedazzled, Bewitched

Bewitched, reminiscent of all great television sitcoms, shows us our place in life.  It gives us a glimpse of the family we would like to be a part of, the job we wish to land, the person we would like to become, the friends we would like to have, and the dreams we wish to fulfill.  Like a fairy godmother’s magic dust, a good sitcom covers reality with fantasy and illusion and provides the modern liberated child in all of us with the security of reruns on the tube. 

Bewitched   teaches a valuable lesson, that there is “magic” in us and it is waiting to be freed.  A talent cannot be suppressed; a gift cannot be ignored in order to please someone else.  In Samantha’s case, her talent was witchcraft, and she tried to please her mortal husband Darrin by abstaining from her craft.

A gift is irrepressible and eventually it will emerge. Look at all the chaos that occurred when Sam tried to suppress her talent. 

Bewitched showed fans that we all have special hidden talents/ “magic” that need to be explored. 

The Magic of Bewitched: Trivia and More book is meant to be informational, fun, and a treasure to add to your Bewitched collection. You, the reader, are invited to the “magic” show. 

We want love to be magical.  We want to live simply and happily.  No one wants their life to be humdrum, married to an individual that sometimes acts like a dum-dum, live in a home in the middle of doldrums, with average children.  We all desire to be special and unique.  Not only do we want to meet Mr. or Miss Right, we want it to be a mystical experience.  In a life that has countless trying moments, we deserve something magical to cherish.  Just go back for a moment in time—look down memory lane.  What are your fondest memories?  Do they seem unreal, like a dream?  That is exactly why Bewitched was so appealing.  It made us secretly wish that there were real witches like Samantha that turned mundane life into magic!

Bewitched Banana Blueberry Bread

1- 6 ounce size of Light Vanilla Yogurt

2 bananas

½ package of Frozen Blueberries

1 Tablespoon of Vanilla Extract

1 teaspoon of Baking soda

2 eggs

butter (optional)

2 cups of flour

1 cup of sugar

½ cup of vegetable oil

Directions: Mix all ingredients (excluding flour) with an electric mixer on medium speed, scraping sides with the spatula until well blended. Add flour and blend. May add the blueberries early since they are frozen. If using fresh blueberries, wait until you have added the flour, then spoon in and fold fresh blueberries. Spray (or grease) a loaf pan and bake in a 350 degree oven for forty minutes, or until a tooth pick placed in the center of the bread comes out clean.

Put God First

Put God first.

 By, Gina Meyers

Putting God first means not being afraid to being open to God’s divine calling in your life. First, forgive yourself . That is the only way that you can truly FEEL God’s love. God loves you. Whomever you are, whatever you do, wherever you live. Forgiving yourself means letting go of the idea that you have to be a perfect human being.

Second, you have to believe in miracles and share these miracles with those around you. I have been a witness to many miracles. Miracles are a sign of God’s activity validating the divine message and the messenger. You can put your trust in God. I believe the worst thing a person can do is to deny God’s miracles.

I Have A Dream Speech on Equality with an ESL Lesson

Do you treat people equally? If you are a parent, do you favor one child over the other? Have you ever treated someone differently based upon appearance? There are a whole slew of things that make us different, and so many things that we have in common.

Respecting our differences.

Do you assume something about a person’s character if they have tattoos? What about body piercings? What about the type of clothes they wear or how they speak? What if you saw a disabled man or woman trying to get on the metro (bus), would you help him/her?

Do you treat people equally?

Aim: fluency based lesson: speaking, writing, and reading

Definition of: The Golden Rule: treating others the way you want to be treated.

Questionnaire

1. Is it ok to insult or make fun of people as long as they don't hear it? Why or why not.

2. What do you dislike most about the way people treat one another?

3. What do you think is Martin Luther King's message in his, "I Have A Dream Speech"?
4. Do you think racism exists?

5. Do you think people are afraid of differences sometimes?

6. What are some ways you can treat people lovingly and kindly?

Vocabulary

A put down

An insult

Respect

The Golden Rule

Positive traits

Characteristics

Negative traits

Personality

Anaphora (repeating words at the beginning of neighboring clauses, “I Have A Dream”, repeated eight times is an example, Anaphora is commonly used in speeches)

Alliteration (Device used most commonly in poetry, when the same consonants are repeated, “She sells sea shells down by the sea shore.” Alliteration is used for poetry mainly).

Fluency

Reading:  “I Have A Dream Speech”, by, Dr. Martin Luther King Junior

Listening:  Aretha Franklins’ “Respect” song

Writing: assignment

1)      Have you ever been made fun of for something you couldn't change?

2) Have you ever had a Dream like the Dream that Dr. Martin Luther King Junior describes in his I Have A Dream Speech?

Writing: Dr. Martin Luther King uses Anaphora in his speech. By repeating the words, I Have A Dream. Write your own speech using starting each of your five sentences with, I Have A Dream……..

On the board (write on easel)

Do's and Don’ts list for treating people that are different from us with respect, identifying behaviors that are both positive and negative traits.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Gina is the publisher of Serendipity Media Group, a marketing, promotions, and publishing house. http://www.serendipitymediagroup.com

Some people are just Bewitched...in a good way by Gina Meyers

Before there were babies and boyfriends, there was Bewitched. There were backyard Bewitched plays and barbies, and ballet lessons…. And Bewitched. Bewitched is a television show that aired from 1964 to July 1972. It was and still is my favorite television sitcom of all time!!! Before there was biking and hiking, for me… there was Bewitched. And now there is baking and book signings because of Bewitched. I always wished I could wiggle my nose—like Samantha Stephens from Bewitched. I always wished that I could just clean up the house in an instant, erase every problem I’ve ever had, and have that sort of “magical” unconditional love that Samantha bestowed upon Darrin Stephens, her rather “uptight” advertising executive of a husband.

As I said before marriage and mortgages and carpools and soccer games, and ballet competitions, and multitude of school projects, work obligations, and just everyday obligations….I live a very magical life…..As a popular television critic Rick Bentley put it so many years ago, I lead a very “charmed life”.

Today a group of people from around the cosmos are coming together for the annual Bewitched Fan Fare in Salem, Massachusetts. They aren’t witches or warlocks (as we all have been accused of), and yes, there really was a time in history when people were accused of “being witches and were burned at the stake”. As Samantha put it (or rather the very brilliant writers on one of the most beloved supernatural sitcoms in history stated: “I belong to a minority group.”) We all do-- if you really think about it.

Heaven knows being an expert on a television sitcom that ended close to before I was born-doesn’t actually bring home the “bacon”. But, being passionate about something has “saved my bacon on more than one occasion”.

Whichever (witch ever) way you look at it… Believe in your dreams.

My introduction written on a spiral bound notebook circa 1991ish, now published since 2004 in The Magic of Bewitched Trivia and More book:

Bewitched reminiscent of all great television sitcoms shows us our place in life. It gives us a glimpse of the family we’d like to be a part of, the job we wish to land, the person we’d like to become, the friends we’d like to have, and the dreams we wish to fulfill. Like a fairy godmother’s magic dust, a good sitcom covers reality with fantasy and illusion and provides the modern liberated child in all of us with security in reruns on the tube, (aka, television set).

Bewitched Fanatical Television Show, August 2005.

Venus and Adonis Episode from Bewitched.

 The Magic of Bewitched Trivia and More, by Gina Meyers

Cosmos Cotillion Cream Cheese Cookies

16 ounce package of cream cheese

¼ cup of margarine

1 package of lemon cake mix

1 egg

1 tsp. of vanilla extract

          Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix the margarine, egg, and cream cheese into a bowl until well blended. Add vanilla extra and the cake mix. When mixed, roll the cookie mixture into balls and place on a not greased cookie sheet. Bake dough for 8 minutes.

Cosmos Cookies

1/2 cup margarine

3/4 cup confectioners' sugar

1 Tablespoon vanilla

1-1/2 cups flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

Galaxy Icing (to complement Cosmos Cookies)

Mix together:

1 cup confectioners' sugar

3-1/2 Tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Food coloring-optional

Directions: Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Thoroughly mix together margarine, vanilla, sugar, and three drops of food coloring (any color).  Add flour and salt and work until dough can hold together. 

Mold dough by Tablespoonfuls around a few chocolate pieces, nuts, or cherries.  Place cookie dough on a baking sheet approximately 1 inch apart for 10 minutes or until light brown.

Once the cookies are cool, dip tops of cookies into Galaxy Icing. Decorate cookies with colored sugar, sprinkles, candies, or coconut.  Makes 25 cookies.

I’ll Blow You A Kiss In The Wind

(By, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart & Serena)

Whenever you are tonight

I got a feelin’ that you look out of sight,

So I’m gonna blow you a kiss in the wind.

And when it reaches your lips your lips my dear,

You’re gonna smile and feel me oh so near,

So I’m gonna low you a kiss in the wind.

I’ve been laying here in my bed

The images of pretty thoughts runnin’ through my head

About a guy in my mind I can feel

I can almost touch

Oh, my goodness

I miss you and I want you so much.

Wherever you are tonight

I got a feelin’ hat you look out of sight

So I’m gonna blow you a kiss in the wind.

Yeah, I’m gonna blow you a kiss in the wind.

 Mocha Kiss Chocolate Chip Cake

1 package of Butter Fudge Cake mix

1 small package of instant vanilla pudding

4 eggs

1 pint of sour cream

¼ cup of chilled strong coffee, such as French or espresso roast

½ cup of oil

8 ounces of chocolate chips     

Directions: Mix all ingredients in a bowl with an electric mixer. Place batter into a  sprayed bunt pan and bake at  350 degrees for forty minutes. Cool and serve. Once cooled, generously dust top of cake with powdered sugar.

Zucchini Relleno

Zucchini Relleno

1 1/4 pounds zucchini, cubed

4 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 pound Monterey jack cheese, cubed

2 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons parsley flakes

1 small can diced green chilies

1/2 stick of butter or margarine

1/2 cup of dry bread crumbs

Salt and pepper to taste

Cooking spray

Directions: Boil squash for five minutes and then drain and cool. Next, blend eggs, milk, and all of the dry ingredients, except bread crumbs.

Spray a 9- by 9-inch pan with cooking spray and then sprinkle with bread crumbs. Then layer three layers, first the squash, then the chilies and lastly, the cheese. Pour liquid mixture over the squash layers and top with cut up butter or margarine pieces. Bake at 350° for 35 minutes or until set. Cut into squares and serve as an appetizer.

Recipe excerpt from Cook Like A Hot Italian Mama. By, Gina Ferrari